In many ways, the final score was misleading. Orange County was down by as many as 27 points in the third quarter at home against Madison County. But with a frenetic finish to the fourth quarter, the deficit was trimmed to just eight points. Nonetheless, there was nothing about Saturday’s game between the Mountaineers and Hornets that said this was a close game. Orange may have enjoyed a strong finish to the game, but the Mountaineers dominated the first thre quarters to take the season sweep of their out of district rival, 58-51.
“Everyone needs to be ready to play,” said Mountaineers coach Ben Breeden. “The bench played well early, but I was a little disappointed with the way it played late in the game. You never know when you’re going to be counted on and so you need to take care of the ball and be ready no matter the situation.”
Sure it was an interesting finish, but so was the start of the game.
Madison jumped out to a 11-0 run to start the first quarter and behind their dominance in the offensive rebounding department, were maintain a double digit lead through out the entire first half. Madison’s big three — Logan Terrell, David Falk and Jerel Carter all had big games and made up 82 percent of the Mountaineer’s offense. Terrell led all scorers with 20 points while Falk was not far behind with his 18.
“You’ve got to take advantage of Logan and David running the floor,” Breeden said. “I thought that we did that tonight.”
While the Hornets struggled in the first half, they were able to roll with the punches in the third quarter before throwing together a strong rally in the fourth — albeit one with too little time on the clock. Josh Pugh was Orange’s biggest contributor on offense in the first half and eventually finished the game with 14 points, but it was Travis Braxton who almost single handedly widdled the Mountaineer lead down eight points in the game’s final frame. The senior guard led his team in scoring with 18 points.
“Really, in the second half I thought that we were able to match (Madison),” said Orange coach Keyode Rogers. “But that couldn’t make up for the the start we had. We have to play more consistent basketball and remember that there are four quarters in the this game. Not just one or two.”
Madison (10-0) will head to Handley on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Orange (5-4) will host Western Albemarle on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
